Tina Graudina, Anastasija Samoilova win first gold, leap up Olympic beach rankings
Pro Beach
Travis Mewhirter
December 4, 2023
The podium at the Nuvali Challenge/Volleyball World photo
The Olympic race for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games officially began in February in Doha, Qatar, with the Volleyball World Elite16. The final event is yet to be determined, but the qualification period will conclude on June 9, 2024. We’ll be providing these updates for the Beach Volleyball Olympic rankings throughout the next two years.
Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova have won two European Championships. Claimed an Olympic qualifying event in Haiyang, China. They’ve been the Cinderellas of an Olympic Games, dancing and twirling to fourth in the Tokyo Games, where they were the first Latvian women’s team to ever compete in an Olympics.
Yet they’d never won a Beach Pro Tour event.
Gold had eluded the Latvian duo. Twice in 2022 — in Rosarito, Mexico, and Paris, France — they fell one win shy, settling for silver. An admirable finish, no doubt, but not the golden one that felt inevitable. On Sunday in Nuvali, Philippines, the inevitable alas met reality: Graudina and Samoilova won their first Beach Pro Tour gold medals, topping Spanish youngsters Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno, 21-14, 21-18. The win tacked on nearly 400 points to their Olympic ranking, pushing them from No. 10 to No. 9, putting them in what should be a nearly cemented spot to qualify for their second consecutive Olympic Games in 2024.
An equally momentous gold was won on the men’s side, by Austrians Moritz Pristauz and Robin Seidl. Unlike Graudina and Samoilova, the victory does not mark the first gold of their careers; it doesn’t even mark the first gold of the fall season. But it is, perhaps, even more important for the Austrians, who have had a wild ride of a season, one that began with a bronze medal at the La Paz Challenge and also featured them sinking so low they were coming out of qualifiers in Futures events. Now? They’ve won two gold medals in four events, flipping their seeding from high qualifier to No. 3 in the main draw. Their gold also leaps them above Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk in the Olympic rankings, to No. 20 — still on the outside looking in, but a mighty improvement from a season that once looked lost.
Settling for silver was Australians Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert, who continue to fly up the ranks. The 2023 Asian Champs have now won three medals, one of every color, as well as the 800-point Asian Championships, pushing them from No. 14 to No. 9 in the Olympic rankings though not yet safely within the qualifying threshold.
Women’s Beach Volleyball Olympic Rankings (updated December 4 after the Volleyball World Nuvali Challenge)
Duda Lisboa, Ana Patricia Silva, BRAZIL, 11060 (10)
Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth, USA, 10260 (11)
Carolina Salgado, Barbara Seixas, BRAZIL, 9600 (12)
To qualify for the Olympic Games via the Olympic rankings, teams use their best 12 finishes throughout the Olympic qualifying period, which ends June 9, 2024. The top 17 from the Olympic rankings will punch their tickets to the Paris Olympics. The remaining seven spots are allotted to five continental cup champions, the winner of the 2023 World Championships, and the French wild card.
Each country is limited to two teams who can earn a spot in the Olympic Games.
Teams can never push out good finishes. Once you hit your 12, you only replace your worst finishes. In parentheses below is the number of events each pair has played.
You earn points as a team. Therefore, if a team breaks up and the individuals select new partners, they begin with zero Olympic ranking points, although they keep their individual entry points to get into events.
